Winterizing Tips

[chedges]

I have had my Bennington 22 for three years now. Love it. But tired of paying the marina the money to do what I think should be easy to do. I am looking for Must do's, and should probably do? Have had no issues with the boat, just upgraded to 115 last year, so it is new. Will be shrink wrapped and stored outside.

 

[Silver Eagle]

Re: Winterizing Tips

I don't believe in shrink wrap .Cost is too hign. I have two alumn poles and I take rope and make it look like a tee Pee. then I cover it with heavy duty plastic. I always empty the boat first, remove all the safety equipment. I put them in some place dry. I clean the vinyl with a vinyl protector .Drain the fuel tank,That's what I started to do last weekend. I'm using the gasoline in my truck.Check the tire pressure, pump them up if needed. open up the seats and spray for bugs. The marinea that I go to charges me $150.00 to winterixze the motor 90 hp merc,two stroke. and the charge $15.00 a foot storage. And that good until the end of May.The storage area is in a protected lot with one way in only.

 

[bob1340]

Re: Winterizing Tips

If you have small dents in the toons fill them with water and once it drops to -14 the dents just pop out!

Sorry, California Humor.

 

[mjc3834merc]

Re: Winterizing Tips

Wonder how many idiots with small dents in their pontoons will fill them with water and have an open seam come spring.

Sorry, missed the humor

 

[Silver Eagle]

Re: Winterizing Tips

I've used dry ice to pop out small dents from hail damage. use a towel under the ice, move it slowly over the dents. do it a couple of passes . I saved a friend of mine's car $2,000 in repair's by doing this. it works.

 

[BatDaddy1887]

Re: Winterizing Tips

I had damage on both logs from where an inept worker (since fired) at the marina dropped my boat when lifting/moving it around the boat yard. The marina fixed the dents (in the bottom of the logs) by inflating the toons with about 5lbs of air pressure until they popped out. This is a very dangerous procedure and would not recommend anyone to try this....unless you were desperate to get them fixed as I were, I was going to replace them anyway so I had nothing to lose. The logs are dang near perfect to this day.

 

[EGlideRider]

Re: Winterizing Tips

I have had my Bennington 22 for three years now. Love it. But tired of paying the marina the money to do what I think should be easy to do. I am looking for Must do's, and should probably do? Have had no issues with the boat, just upgraded to 115 last year, so it is new. Will be shrink wrapped and stored outside.

Here in South Florida, we just throw a light jacket on the boat and we are set for the winter. LOL!!!

 

[5150abf]

Re: Winterizing Tips

Where does the OP say anything about dents??

You should at the least change your lower unit oil with a good lower unit oil, if your engine is new make sure you use the correct oil so you don't void your warranty and get some Stabil in the gas making sure to run the engine till you are sure it has taken the treated gas ANd that si reall yall there is.

Being an OB you don't need to worry baout running anti freeze through it.

Batdaddy, I am the repair guy at Bennington, please have your marina send me some of that air that knows where a dent is in the tube, it would save me a ton of time fixxing tubes.

Sorry but the air in the tube pushes out the same on the entire tube and it is not going to push a dent out especially with only 5 psi, we check our tubes with 10 psi and it doesn't push the tubes out anywhere anf certianly won't fix a dent, not calling you a liar or anything but that isn't how it was fixxed.

I would suspect they used a dent puller and filled the holes in, that is the only way I have ever found to fix dents and have repaired alot of tubes in my 23 years.

By the way DO NOT EVER put more than 2-3 psi in a tube, check the sticky at the top of this forum before you do, we use so much air as part of our quality check, if ti can't hold that much air without damage I don't want it in the field, by the way that tube was the last one to let go.